Music magpie rental help!

penmirren77

Hi, I’m looking/hoping for some advice? I had a rental phone from music magpie that recently came to an end. I returned the phone on Monday which was slightly damaged cosmetically (crack on back).  Yesterday I had a notification from the bank to advise that they had attempted to take £301 from my account. I contacted them to ask why and why I hadn’t been notified prior to this. They said it was the cost of fixing the phone (it is an older iPhone model). I asked for a breakdown of why the cost was so high - I fully expected to pay for the damage but £301! I checked with a local company who said the cost is much much lower. 

Anyway, music magpie have come back and said apologies the amount is wrong and it’s actually £251! Again I asked for a breakdown of this but they haven’t responded.  And again this morning they attempted to take £301 from my bank account.

Can anyone offer advice? Thank you!

eskbanker

When you say that they 'attempted' to take money from your bank, was this by direct debit or continuous payment authority, and either way round, had you cancelled the relevant bank mandate in order to prevent such attempts from succeeding?

If so, then at least they can't help themselves to the money and so have to pursue you via other means, but naturally they will do this if the debt is legitimate - you can obviously try to negotiate down the cost but the repair cost charged by a local company may not be a meaningful benchmark, and MM may impose some sort of admin fees on top of the underlying cost (which would be shown on any breakdown you prise out of them), so check what the Ts & Cs say about that.

Peter999_2

It is a bit like leasing a car.   I always get any damage fixed myself before I hand it back as they'll charge so much more than I can get it fixed for.     Maybe next time if you lease the phone get it fixed yourself if it gets broken.

That being said, it is poor what they have done with taking the £301 from your account after you have spoken to them.  You need to keep on at them to get a resolution.

PHK

You can check the cost of a back repair on the Apple Website. Depending on the model (they may have magnets and NFC attached) then £251 or £301 is not expensive   

What model is it ?

voluted

PHK said:

You can check the cost of a back repair on the Apple Website. Depending on the model (they may have magnets and NFC attached) then £251 or £301 is not expensive   

What model is it ?

It can be done considerably cheaper than Apple are charging and given the cheapest Apple are quoting is £369 we can assume they're not getting it repaired via Apple.

However it is their property and they're entitled to have it repaired in the way that they want, although I would ask who is repairing it for £251 because if they don't care about getting it done officially, they could probably get it done for less than £100.

Personally I'd offer them £99 and if they refuse, ask for the device back and get it repaired for £99 and send it back.

PHK

voluted said:

PHK said:

You can check the cost of a back repair on the Apple Website. Depending on the model (they may have magnets and NFC attached) then £251 or £301 is not expensive   

What model is it ?

It can be done considerably cheaper than Apple are charging and given the cheapest Apple are quoting is £369 we can assume they're not getting it repaired via Apple.

However it is their property and they're entitled to have it repaired in the way that they want, although I would ask who is repairing it for £251 because if they don't care about getting it done officially, they could probably get it done for less than £100.

Personally I'd offer them £99 and if they refuse, ask for the device back and get it repaired for £99 and send it back.

Surely, the rental terms and conditions would specify that the repair should be done to manufacturer standards? There are always places that will do a cheap job, but that doesn’t necessarily mean either that the job will be done to the required standard or that they’ll use suitable quality parts. 

OP, what do the terms and conditions say?

voluted

PHK said:

voluted said:

PHK said:

You can check the cost of a back repair on the Apple Website. Depending on the model (they may have magnets and NFC attached) then £251 or £301 is not expensive   

What model is it ?

It can be done considerably cheaper than Apple are charging and given the cheapest Apple are quoting is £369 we can assume they're not getting it repaired via Apple.

However it is their property and they're entitled to have it repaired in the way that they want, although I would ask who is repairing it for £251 because if they don't care about getting it done officially, they could probably get it done for less than £100.

Personally I'd offer them £99 and if they refuse, ask for the device back and get it repaired for £99 and send it back.

Surely, the rental terms and conditions would specify that the repair should be done to manufacturer standards? There are always places that will do a cheap job, but that doesn’t necessarily mean either that the job will be done to the required standard or that they’ll use suitable quality parts. 

OP, what do the terms and conditions say?

If they're doing it for £251, they're not using Apple parts either. Apple charges barely less for parts than they charge to repair it themselves, and I also can't see rear cases as a part they will supply to third parties on their website.

I've loosely worked in (or with) that industry and had plenty of devices that were "refurbished to manufacturers standards" that used third-party parts come back with an unhappy customer attached, and those were just the ones where the customer had found out about it.

It's extremely likely therefore that MM will be doing the same cheap job that places on the internet will do.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

voluted said:

However it is their property and they're entitled to have it repaired in the way that they want

If OP can avoid them taking payment they do have a duty to mitigate their losses so there has to be a degree of reasonableness in this but obviously the party that articulates it's self best has a greater chance of winning.

It's interesting they knocked £50 when challenged, I would how much lower they'd go with a bit more resistance?

penmirren77

Thanks for the advice. It’s a refurbished iPhone 12, which was originally valued at the same price they are asking me to pay for the basic repair. They are continuing to try and take the money which I don’t have hence it’s being refused. I had a direct debit set up for the rental payment which has been repaid fully, they are using the same means to take this one off payment.  I have asked for a breakdown of the costs but they haven’t provided it. I have asked them to send me the phone back so I can get it repaired at a reasonable cost but they have also refused.

Basically, they will continue to try to take the funds until I pay it. They have now said the £50 they had deducted wasn’t a change to the repair cost but a cancellation fee they had charged me in error. The CS is appalling, no one is helping and I keep getting different information.

voluted

pennyralston44 said:

Thanks for the advice. It’s a refurbished iPhone 12, which was originally valued at the same price they are asking me to pay for the basic repair. They are continuing to try and take the money which I don’t have hence it’s being refused. I had a direct debit set up for the rental payment which has been repaid fully, they are using the same means to take this one off payment.  I have asked for a breakdown of the costs but they haven’t provided it. I have asked them to send me the phone back so I can get it repaired at a reasonable cost but they have also refused.

Basically, they will continue to try to take the funds until I pay it. They have now said the £50 they had deducted wasn’t a change to the repair cost but a cancellation fee they had charged me in error. The CS is appalling, no one is helping and I keep getting different information.

Not sure what else you can do under the circumstances.

An official repair with Apple is £369 and I would certainly say they're within their rights to repair with official Apple parts. Whatever they're trying to charge you seems "reasonable" in comparison.

If this isn't being reported to the CRAs you might be just better off cancelling the DD whilst you argue the toss with them, or come to some sort of arrangement. I suspect if they get their hands on the money they will be even more reluctant to come to an agreement with you. If they are reporting it to the CRAs you might be risking a default, so it may well not be worth trying to withhold the cash.

born_again

Even if they don't report to the CRA. It will show as a unpaid DD on your credit history.